CERL Thesaurus Help

Searching

To search for a name or title in the CERL Thesaurus, enter a search term into the search box and select the segments of the database you wish to search by ticking the boxes below the search box. You may search in more than one segment at a time. Searchable are name forms (in any word order), record identifiers (CT identifiers and other identifiers) as well as words and codes from the activity and geographic notes fields.

The records that match your search terms are grouped according the database segments they belong to. I.e. when searching for paris, the capital of France will appear in the places section while Geneviève <de Paris> will appear in the persons section.

Click on a record to display the full information or click on the clipboard symbol to add that record to your clipboard in order to consult it at a later point in time or download it.

Clicking More Search Options opens an extended form from which you may select even more categories to search in. (You may close this form by clicking “Fewer Search Options”.)

The use of Boolean search operators is not supported. If you enter more than one search term, the system will combine them by a logical AND. Phrase search is not supported either. For searching an exact name form, use the index browse lists.

Right Truncation is possible by adding a question mark (?) to the search term.

You may sort your search results either alphabetically or chronologically. Please note that records without biographical dates will sort at the end of a set when chronological sorting is applied.

You may always return to your last search result set by clicking Search in the navigation bar on the right.

Examples of searching for names

(Personal or Imprint names)

1. Forms used as entry forms by one of the contributing libraries are indexed as they are, without any further additions etc. For example:

1 budapest

or

1 ribalta, francisco

2. Variant or fictional name forms are followed by an equals sign and the first (in alphabetical order) heading form. For example:

1 zagrabia = agram

or

1 ribadeneira, petrus = ribadeneyra, pedro

(Personal names only)

3. A name form comprising non-sorting elements will be indexed [a] without the non-sorting elements, [b] with the non-sorting elements as a part of the first name and [c] with the non-sorting elements as a part of the last name. For example:

1 bergen, paulus
1 bergen, paulus von
1 von bergen, paulus

4. Names containing additons (filing qualifiers) are indexed with the addition following the name and without. For example:

1 parker, matthew archbishop of canterbury
2 parker, matthew

5. Names that consist only of a single name form (i.e. the first name) and an addition to the name or a filing qualifier will be indexed with and without the addition and - unless the addition contains a numeration of any kind - with the addition in the place of the last name. For example: